“We’re all anticipating with Delta, with all the travel that we’re doing and all these holiday get-togethers, the beginnings of Omicron and its spread as well as … influenza also making its appearance, we could be in for an ominous winter season and a kind of grim beginning of the new year,” Dr. William Schaffner, a professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, told CNN’s Jim Acosta Sunday.
“If we’re going to deal with Omicron successfully, vaccinated people need to get boosted,” Fauci told NBC Sunday.
Recent data is demonstrating the potential dangers of remaining unvaccinated, including a 10-times greater risk of testing positive and 20-times greater risk of dying from Covid-19 than those vaccinated and boosted, according to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data through October.
“Omicron has thrown a curveball” in the fight against Covid-19, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said Sunday, and everyone — especially those around unvaccinated or higher-risk individuals — needs to take precautions.
“A lot of people don’t want to be linked in a train of transmission that could get to a vulnerable person, so we should be prudent over the next four to six weeks,” he told CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
“If you’ve been exposed and have not tested negative, please do not go travel and potentially expose other people,” she told CNN’s Pamela Brown Sunday.
States responding to outbreaks
There’s generally about a three-week lag behind Covid-19 case trends and hospitalizations, according to a CNN Health analysis, but officials are hopeful the state will be in a more favorable position than last year.
“This is not March of 2020, we are not defenseless,” Hochul said. “We have the tools to protect ourselves and the vulnerable loves ones in our families: Get vaccinated, get the booster and wear a mask when indoors or in large gatherings. Don’t take a chance during the winter surge.”
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu told CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday that the state has been preparing for a winter surge and hopes to combat Covid-19 spread with measures including state-issued at-home testing and flexing beds within hospitals. Bringing in health care workers from other states has been key as well, Sununu said.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan predicted that the state will see “probably the worst surge we’ve seen in our hospitals throughout the entire crisis” over the next three to five weeks, telling “Fox News Sunday” that officials are “trying to do everything we can to get the last 9.2% of our population vaccinated.”
Lockdowns are not being considered, he said, and decried a return to remote learning in schools since protocols currently in place should be sufficient.
Schools and sports are making changes
Citing the “uncertainty” around the Omicron variant, Stanford University announced it is shifting to online instruction for the first two weeks of the upcoming winter quarter, slated to begin January 3.
Harvard University is also moving to remote learning for the first three weeks of January classes, stating in an open letter that the move was “prompted by the rapid rise in Covid-19 cases locally and across the country, as well as the growing presence of the highly transmissible Omicron variant.”
Five NBA games have been postponed as several teams in the league have numerous players under Covid-19 health and safety protocols. More than a dozen games in NCAA men’s basketball have been canceled or postponed.
CNN’s Deidre McPhillips, Artemis Moshtaghian, Gregory Lemos, Keith Allen, Sarah Moon, Andy Rose, DJ Judd, Sarah Fortinsky, Jacob Lev, Holden Perrelli, Riuki Gakio and Niah Humphrey contributed to this report.